


Fluff Without Plot

by mothmanaintshit



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Friendship/Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 06:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5364338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothmanaintshit/pseuds/mothmanaintshit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a bunch of mass effect one-shots. pairings will be added when included in one-shot. Always has some form of fluff (+ smut, angst, etc.) rating may change depending on one-shot c:</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fluff Without Plot

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of canon divergence with canon romance scenes… had a really rough day and couldn’t sleep, needed to write some Shakarian fluff. Non-edited, no real reason behind this other than I needed fluff. Idk how I started this, idk the middle, idk the ending. Fluff without Plot, the end.

She couldn’t sleep, and hell if she could figure out why. She laid in the same position as every night; pillow between her legs – nursing the shattered knee that never correctly healed after Elysium (even after being rebuild, the pain seemed to linger; some semblance of her former self, she was actually glad to not be completely rebuilt from scratch) – hard body pillow laid sideways under her chest as she cradled a softer, plushier,  _freezing_  to the touch pillow against her face as she succumbed to the inevitable abyss of fatigue. But tonight, sleep seemed to allude her. It could be from the beating she had taken during the day, both physical and mental – it  _was_  most likely from that –, or it could be that no matter how dark she made her cabin everything was  _blue_  and  _bright_  and  ** _shinned_** , even through her closed eyelids. Cerberus made the Normandy too bright, too sparkly for her liking; Shepard even went as far as to ask EDI to dim every light whenever she was going to a different section of the ship.

The only difference from her room and the rest of the ship was the window above her bed and the fish tank – that damned fish tank that had no purpose, save for a grave for all the fish she tended to forget about; only her hamster seemed to survive her mistreatment, and it was only because of Garrus—

Shepard’s eyes shot open at the thought of the turian, whom she’d only recently admitted having feelings for – more than just stress-relieving feelings.  _Recently_  being only a few hours ago to Tali down on the Mess Hall, only five feet away from said turian, before getting flustered, denying such feelings and running off to her room, red faced and nervous. 

That couldn’t  _really_  be her reason for restlessness, could it?

Shepard pouted and readjusted herself, shoving her face further into the cooled pillow and groaning.

It has to be. 

Shepard’s been beaten before; she knew how to take it, knew how to bottle it up and knew how to use it when the time came. Feelings of love, she didn’t know how to handle. She’d never been in love, could never see herself in love – it made people weak. She’d seen all the cheesy romantic comedies her species made, love sick women, blind women, women who fell ill when their hero goes out to  _buy fucking milk_. Shepard shut her eyes and shuddered, feeling the pull of her heart at the thought of herself ever becoming one of  _those_  women. Shepard’s ears twitched when she heard light knocking against her door, she’d almost miss it if it wasn’t for EDI’s quiet voice saying who it was.

“Of course.” Shepard let out a humorless laugh; the gods were not kind on her today.  _He_  was here. “Let Garrus in.”

“ _Logging you out, Shepard_.”

The door hissed open, a fading ‘ _whoosh_ ’ sounded after before the doors clicked shut once more. Shepard didn’t move, she didn’t think she could even if she wanted to, and he understood. Today had been a particularly bad day for all of them, and she was happy when EDI kept the lights off, the fish tank offered enough light for Garrus to see his way down the stairs.

“I’d move,” Shepard yawned into her pillow, “But—” 

“You don’t have to.” He sounded amused,  _too_  amused.

_Why?_

Her brows knitted together in confusion as she turned her head to look at the turian, but her brows quickly shot up, seeing the blanket that once covered her had been kicked in a pool on the cabin floor. Shepard was in nothing but her briefs and N7 hoodie, her scarred and bruised skin glowing blue from the fish tank.

“ _Geez_ , Vakarian.” Shepard groaned, letting her face fall back onto the pillow, cheek’s flushing in embarrassment. “Maybe give me a heads up next time—” 

“And miss  _this_  view?” He crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the glass casing with her model ships. “Heh… not a chance, Shepard.” Shepard picked her head up and stuck her tongue out, childishly, at the man.

“How dare you.” She mumbled, but did not make any move to reach for the blanket.

“Besides, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” Garrus’ mandibles flared into that turian smirk she knew all too well. She sighed and settled back down, keeping her eyes on Garrus. She noticed how his mandibles were now pressed tightly against his jaw, eye’s unfocused but on her, his talons gripping his civvie sleeves. Shepard pushed herself up, ignoring the pain shooting up her back, and straightened, sitting lotus style.

“Garrus?”

Garrus stood straight, back into ‘Officer Vakarian’ Mode as she called it, and cleared this throat. “I’m… worried about you, Shepard.” 

“Worried?” Shepard tilted her head, confused, “Why—” Shepard’s head straightened out, her eyes moving to his visor where – even from how far they were apart – she could see specs flying across the mini-screen.

“After the day you’ve had –  _we’ve_  had—… I just wanted to check up on you.” Garrus’ subvocals hummed with more than just worry over a friend. Shepard bit her lip as her head tilted down. She stared down at her scarred palms, small bits of glowing red passing through them from her cybernetics, before fisting her hands. 

“Would if be bad if I said I didn’t know?” There was a long pause before the bed dipped next to Shepard, an arm wrapping around Shepard’s shoulder and pulling her against Garrus.

“Not at all.” He mumbled into her hair.


End file.
